Daily Archives: October 22, 2013

Lacy Hunt reports on three recent academic studies indicating that the Fed’s unconventional asset purchasing programs have failed. Antonio Fatas is “sympathetic to the argument that Quantitative Easing has had a limited effect on GDP growth”, but takes issue with some parts of Hunt’s analysis, and argues that the way Hunt analyzes the relationship between reserves and the money multiplier “is not consistent with the conclusions reached about the lack of effectiveness of monetary policy actions.” I believe there are problems with both Hunt’s analysis and Fatas’s analysis of that analysis. My best guess is that QE has had negligible macroeconomic effects. But some of the considerations Hunt and Fatas adduce in attempting to evaluate that question are red herrings, and don’t get us closer to an answer.

As the US government shutdown was still in effect and the prospect of a debt default loomed, President Obama held an extraordinary and revealing White House press briefing on October 8th in which he clarified his then position vis-à-vis the shutdown and debt ceiling. After the shutdown was (temporarily) ended on October 17th, Obama made a fairly extensive public statement airing his views of how he sees economic policy and government’s role. While I have not followed every one of Obama’s press conferences or speeches, in both of these public appearances, Obama went into unusual detail and lengths to expand on his views of politics, government and the economy. In addition, he marked out his most combative stance vis-à-vis the Republicans to date. Also in his October 17th statement we had the clearest statement for a number of decades, of some of the benefits of having a government at all from a top American political leader.